Interview Stories and Part III (Shannon)

One thing that really stood out to me last week while I was listening to the interview stories presentations was that nearly all of the women leaders we were introduced to did not view themselves as leaders. Do you all think this is because of gender roles in our society and the way that women are not traditionally viewed as leaders? Do you think women are afraid of looking too ambitious or too confident like Marie Wilson continuously suggested in "Closing the Leadership Gap?" I just thought this was really interesting to observe in terms of what we have learned about and discussed in this class so far…

There were some interesting suggestions that Part III of the "Exploring Leadership" book gave to help groups work through conflicts and to make sure that members get the most out of their group experience. I have been in some nightmarish group situations in the past where the work load was totally uneven and unfair. I never really knew how to handle those kinds of situations effectively and I feel like the part about thinking of groups as communities (chapter nine) may have helped. I’m not sure if this would work as well in group scenarios at the undergrad level as it would at the organizational level. It’s hard to get people to feel a sense of commitment and identity to a group project or course that they really don’t care about…

I also enjoyed reading chapter ten about the renewal process and I thought that a lot of what was suggested could be applied to some of the principles and ideas that NCC promotes in its learning communities. I liked the idea that "the group dynamic changes in amazing ways once we quit trying to lay blame" and also that we need to share responsibility for our successes as well as for our losses (KLM 314). This is a popular idea in NCC learning communities especially when giving group presentations. We are encouraged to say things like "what WE found in our research was such and such…" rather than "what I found in MY research was such and such…" While this can be incredibly hard to do—especially if you’re the only one doing the work—it really is essential to the practice of shared responsibility, and I know how frustrating it can be for one person in the group to use "I/my" instead of "we" because it makes you feel like they are taking credit for everything.